Human Torch: Plot by Stan Lee – Script by H.E. Huntley – Art by Dick Ayers – Letters by John Duffy
Doctor Strange: Written by Stan Lee – Art by Steve Ditko – Letters by Terry Szenics
Strange Tales #110 marks a major change for the series. For the first time, the Human Torch isn’t the only superhero featured in the book. Tucked into the back is a five-page story introducing Marvel’s newest hero, Doctor Strange.
It’s the first of the superhero double-features that would soon become a staple of Marvel’s former anthology titles.
It is also an interesting combination because the two stories show Marvel moving forward in completely different ways.
The Human Torch builds on Marvel’s Superhero world, bringing together two established villains and continuing to develop his growing rogues’ gallery. Doctor Strange opens the door to an entirely new corner of the Marvel Universe.
The lead story brings together the Wizard and Paste-Pot Pete, making this one of Marvel’s earliest villain team-ups. We haven’t seen much of this yet outside of Doctor Doom and Namor joining forces in Fantastic Four #6.
There’s also something particularly fun about seeing these two together knowing what comes later. Before the costumes and the Frightful Four, the Wizard and Paste-Pot Pete were simply a couple of Human Torch villains looking for revenge. Early Marvel villain motivation doesn’t get much more complicated than that.
The issue opens with Johnny training with his powers and looking through his logbook, giving new readers a quick introduction to the Human Torch, his abilities, and his history with both villains.
Paste-Pot Pete has secretly returned to the country and decides to seek out the Wizard, who is sitting in prison with his own dreams of revenge against the Torch. Pete breaks him out, and almost immediately there’s friction between them as the Wizard assumes he’s in charge.
It’s a small thing, but Marvel is beginning to give its villains relationships with one another. They don’t simply team up because the story requires it. They argue. They have egos. They don’t necessarily like each other.
It’s another small piece of what is becoming a distinctly Marvel style of storytelling. The plot matters, but so do the personalities, relationships, and petty conflicts happening around it.
Their plan is to destroy the Human Torch’s reputation before destroying him. They plant stories accusing Johnny of being a spy and impersonate the Torch while committing crimes, turning the public against him.
This time, however, Johnny is the one who eventually turns the tables. He uses flame mirages to confuse the villains and battles them through a house of mirrors, giving Dick Ayers an opportunity for some fun visual tricks as multiple Torches appear throughout the room.
It’s only an okay Human Torch story, but there’s something fun about watching two lower-level villains team up, immediately get on each other’s nerves, and start building a history together.
Doctor Strange’s debut is only five pages long. It might also be the most visually distinctive five pages Marvel has published so far in their superhero line.
Marvel has experimented with magic before. Loki uses magic constantly, although it’s often presented almost like another superpower. Marvel has shown us its own version of Merlin. The previous issue of Strange Tales introduced the Sorcerer and explicitly dealt with black magic.
But Doctor Strange under Ditko’s artistic direction feels different. Those were superhero stories that happened to feature magic. This feels like a world where magic comes first and the superhero comes second.
And this is definitely a superhero story. The opening caption makes it clear that Doctor Strange is Marvel’s newest superhero, but Steve Ditko’s artwork looks more like something pulled from one of the company’s old horror anthologies.
Jack Kirby’s Marvel is built around movement. Characters explode through panels and entire worlds seem constantly in motion. Dick Ayers brings a clean clarity to his storytelling. Don Heck gives Marvel’s characters a polished superhero look.
Ditko makes the world feel unsettled. Shadows swallow faces. A match lighting a cigarette creates an eerie glow. Darkness seems to creep into the panels. When Strange enters the dream realm, recognizable reality gives way to strange shapes and impossible spaces.
The character Nightmare emerges from the darkness with pale skin and riding a horse that looks more like a spectral creature than an animal.
What’s equally remarkable is how little explanation Lee and Ditko provide.
There is no origin story. Doctor Strange already exists. He has his home in Greenwich Village. The Ancient One is already his mentor. Strange can leave his physical body and travel in astral form. The Eye of Agamotto exists. Nightmare already rules his own realm.
Lee and Ditko don’t build the world for us. They simply drop us into it.
The plot itself is wonderfully simple. A man suffering from recurring nightmares seeks Strange’s help. Strange agrees to enter his dreams and discover what’s tormenting him.
Before doing so, Strange leaves his body in astral form to seek guidance from the Ancient One, establishing a relationship that will become central to the character.
Once inside the dream, Strange discovers that his client is being haunted by guilt over crimes for which he was never caught or punished. But Strange has also entered the realm of Nightmare.
Suddenly the story becomes something closer to supernatural horror than a superhero comic. Strange isn’t punching his way through the problem. He’s trapped inside another man’s dream while Nightmare attempts to keep him there.
Back in the waking world, Strange’s client realizes his secret has been discovered and attempts to kill him while his physical body sits defenseless. The Ancient One intervenes, using the Eye of Agamotto to hypnotize the man long enough for Strange to escape Nightmare’s realm.
That’s it. Five pages. No fistfight. No Communist plot. No bank robbery. No alien invasion. Just dreams, guilt, magic, and something frightening waiting in the darkness.
Strange Tales #110 shows Marvel expanding in two directions at once. The Human Torch story builds outward from characters and relationships already established, while Doctor Strange introduces magic, dreams, horror, and an entirely different visual language.
Marvel’s superhero universe just got a little more connected and a lot more strange.
Marvel in the 60s – Entry #66
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